Featured News 2013 How to Get Compensated for Damaged Property

How to Get Compensated for Damaged Property

If your vehicle was damaged or totaled, or if you lost any property in an accident, then you are entitled to some compensation. The amount of compensation you could receive would depend on the "actual cash value" of your damaged or lost property. Read on to understand what actual cash value entails, and to understand more about how your claim will play out.

The first order of business is to define "actual cash value". This term simply means market value. You can figure out a property's market value by finding out how much it you could have sold it for before the property was damaged or lost. And this means how much an item of the same model and condition could have gone for on today's market in the area where you live. Unfortunately, this usually means a figure that is less than the actual costs of buying a replacement.

As an illustration, we could take the instance of a driver who got into a crash and sustained damage to her vehicle. The car is nine years old, but he has kept the car in excellent condition. While the crash caused a break in the engine block, entailing expensive repairs, the car can still be brought back to the same condition it was before the wreck. But the driver finds out that the cost of repairs comes out to $5,000. It is also determined that the actual cash value of the same type of vehicle in the same condition would only be $3,500. In this case, insurance would only dole out $3,500 for that driver's claim, that is, pay the actual cash value of the vehicle and not the repair bills. The driver can then decide whether to pay the difference, or whether to simply get another car.

A vehicle being damaged or totaled is not the only reason you can seek compensation in your insurance claim, however. Say that in a different car accident, a car took ten days to repair. The driver also had to pay $140 for towing, and in the end, she had to pay $2,200 for the repair job. Since she still had to work the days she did not have the car, she paid $40 dollars a day for a rental car. In the crash, the driver also discovered that the laptop she uses for work was harmed. She had purchased it a year before, paying $1,800. When she had the laptop looked at, she paid $70, only to find out that the laptop was damaged beyond repair. According to newspaper ads, laptops similar in model and age were being listed at $1,200 and $1,300. So what could this driver get for a property damage claim? Well, the actual cash value of the laptop in this instance could be deemed $1,250. Combining this with the other expenditures, the coverage she could receive would come out to $4,060, a nearly full reimbursement for her expenses.

One other thing to note is how the deductive could come into play. Let's say that you are filing a claim with your own insurance company. The collision deductible from your own policy would be taken out from the amount you could receive in coverage. You do not have to worry about a deductible, however, if you are filing a third-party claim with the other driver's insurance company.

When you are facing the steep price of an auto accident, do not face this time alone. Work with an experienced car accident attorney to receive the amount that you deserve in compensation. Call today to find the answers and the representation that you deserve.

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